Been there done that. The only tool that is needed other than a few wrenches and a hammer is a press. I looked at what was in the manuals, but they make it too difficult. To start with, you need to remove the wheel, and rotor. to remove the rotor, you will have to remove the brake caliper. Remove the bolt on the lower half of the upper ball joint, the two bolts on the back side of the brake caliper and remove the caliper (no need to disconnect the brake line). Take rotor off as per manual. Unbolt the lower ball joint and tie rod end. Loosen the adjusting bolt on the tie rod end. Now here is the part that may have everyone screaming, but it worked for me. Break out a good heavy hammer, though not too heavy don't want to accidentally break anything. Start tapping the bottom side of the tie rod end until it is loose then remove it. now do the same with the upper ball joint and lower ball joint except tap the lower ball joint from the top, the bottom will come later. That should have gotten the steering knuckle off for you. Now since you are at this point, I did a few "might as wells" I replaced the upper control arm bushings and did the brakes. Figured it couldn't hurt. Now that you have the steering nuckel off lay it on the floor and start hammering on the bottom of the lower ball jont until it comes out (which was rather easy for me). Now it is time to put everything back together. This is where you need a press, but you can take the lower ball joint and the steering nuckle to a shop and pay for that part, you are sill saving a lot of money still. If you have access to a press then take a pipe or something that will fit over the top of the lower ball joint (no need for expensive VW tools here!! :>) I used a large deepwell socket! now press the lower balljoint home. Everything now bolts together the opposite way it was removed. The only difficulty I had here was torquing the ball joint bolts, couldn't get the torque wrench to fit, but I am sure that there are special expensive addapters that will fit. What I did was tighten the life out of the bolts.. they are probably large enough to handle alot. Even if they were a little loose, the way they are set up, your front end won't fall off. Now if you get the new alignment and it doesn't drive straight, look at the sheet the shop gives you and make sure they did all of the adjustment. Don't let the service people tell you that a part wasn't adjustable because they all are (Camber, caster and toe). Better yet, have them check the alignment machine before the service and get a print out of your van to see if the machine has the updated informaton including all of the ajustments and how they are done. I took mine to Sears and they did that for me. The printout had pictures of all of the adjustment points and how to adjust them. Only one of their alignment machines had the information correct for the vanagon so make sure to check if you want it done right. If you still can't drive straight after all that, check your tires, mine were out of alignment so long that they decided where they wanted to go!!

Tools required to change ball joints: 1 common hammer open end wrenches 13, 15, 19, and a few larger? can't remember. I did have to use 2 together to get some extra torque pliers for cotter pins press (could probably use a large bench vise) Torque wrench something stable to hold front end up (you gotta get underneath and dont wanna get squished) Bentley manual (gotta pray every once n awhile) Big screwdriver to hold up brake caliper NO VW TOOLS REQUIRED!!!!

This job is not too difficult but rather time consuming. I paid about $200 for all of the parts including the upper control arm bushings and brake pads. Bought all of it from Ron at The Bus Depot except for the pads.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Pete peterz@gte.net 83.5 Vanagon

-----Original Message----- From: gerry rafferty <gerryr@DIRECT.CA> To: Vanagon@VANAGON.COM <Vanagon@VANAGON.COM> Date: Saturday, August 22, 1998 10:33 PM Subject: Re: Ball joints replacement

Took my van in for a wheel alignment-requires upper and lower ball joints and tie rod ends. Tried getting info from archives but it times out. So has anyone tried changing above items? Is it worth trying to do myself or let a VW mechanic do the job? I have the Haynes and Bentley manuals-the upper ball joints and tie rod replacement I think I can do but the lower ball joints look difficult in the VW tools required. Does anyone have exact location in archives(Month,Year) of above info? Any opinions/suggestions welcomed. Thanks GerryR